


Things Not In Your Book

by keenquing



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 09:33:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keenquing/pseuds/keenquing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle's gift is perception--but what if it wasn't such a gift after all? Or, the one in which Belle is the Seer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother?_ I _do. There_ are _things not in your book. There_ are _paths outside this garden. You would do well to remember that._ - **Delirium to Destiny, Sandman #47**

It was meant to be a gift.

When Nova was told she would be the one out of all the fairies to go to the celebration of Lord Maurice's first child—a girl, but her birth had been wished for so much that her sex was seen as a trifling matter—she spent a very long time considering what she would bestow upon the little Lady. Beauty and grace and poise were quickly discarded; the former could lead to shallowness and cruelty if it wasn't properly tempered, and the other two would surely be taught. Wisdom, she thought, would be far better. But it seemed too broad a thing; no one could be wise in all things, not even the Blue Fairy, and picking just one area for the little girl to excel at seemed impossible—a knack for negotiating might have served her just as well as one for being able to tell when a storm would delay a tradeship, depending on the year.

As the day of the ceremony approached, Nova continued to waver until that very morning when she decided on her gift once and for all. This left her little time to weave the tiny spell that would bestow it on the child, so that even as she waited in line behind the noblemen and merchants who also sought to give their respect, she was still rearranging it in her mind. She was so caught up in making sure the spell was _perfect_ that she didn't notice that the duke in front of her had left his little silken pouch at the feet of Lady Rose until the man behind her cleared his throat loudly, startling her so from her nervous hovering that she almost flew directly into the infant's bassinet.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, clumsily putting her hands on the edge of the bassinet to steady herself. For her part, the baby—Belle, she remembered, glad she'd not chosen beauty as her gift when the child's parents had already given it in blood and name—did not cry or squawk at being shaken so. In fact, she looked up at Nova with the brightest blue eyes the fairy had ever seen in such a young child and _smiled._ Despite her nervous state, Nova couldn't help but smile back, even as she fumbled for her wand and focused on remembering the words of her spell.

“Hello there, little one. My, ah, gift to you,” she said, raising her wand—unable, despite the solemn nature of the occasion, to keep from giggling as the baby raised her tiny palm towards it, “is the gift of perception. May you always see the truth of all things and in the hearts of everyone you meet, even when it tries to hide itself from you, and may every possibility and path be known to you for all your life.”

She waved her wand, then, showering the infant's head with a cloud of sparkling purple dust. Belle's tiny squeaking sneeze broke the solemn atmosphere in the room, a tittering of laughter rising from the people around and when Nova lifted her eyes, she saw Lord Maurice and Lady Rose smiling their approval. Bowing an awkward curtsy while trying to keep both her balance and her wand, Nova quickly flitted away, satisfied that she had given the very best gift she could.

 

For a time, it seemed to be just that. No one in the castle noticed the slightest oddity about Belle except, perhaps, that she was an exceptionally easy baby. She rarely cried, and when she did it was always easy to find what she wanted. She never got so much as the littlest cough and almost immediately slept through the night. Even her wetnurse remarked upon the little lady's temperament, saying she was the sweetest child she'd ever nursed.

Of course she became more difficult once she began to toddle, as was to be expected. Belle was a very curious child, always seeking to get close to anything and everything that caught her eye. And if she did begin to cry more then when she was kept from seeking out what she wanted, it was rarely the sort of screaming tantrum that many children of higher birth were prone to. Instead, she would usually whimper and grab at what she wanted for a time, tiny brow creased in frustration, before taking notice of something closer and comparatively safer that her nurse would let her inspect to her heart's content.

It was only when she began to speak in language other people could understand that her parents and nurse began to suspect she might be a little peculiar. At first, it was only that she proved especially hard to lie to even about the smallest things, and would protest fiercely. Then, she began to tell her nurse and her parents—or anyone in the castle who she might be able to pull at to listen—about her dreams. In the beginning, everyone would smile at her nonsensical fancies; tales of men who made gold, pictures that moved and spoke, carts that moved without being pulled by horse or man. When the child would insist they were all true, her bemused audience would pat her head and send her, huffing and pouting, on her way.

Then she began to say strange things, not after waking, but in the middle of the day. When she was not quite three, she was sat at her nurse's feet with a doll while the matron finished a bit of embroidery. Suddenly, Belle looked up at the woman and, without any other preamble, said very clearly,

“Rain.”

Hardly blinking, the old woman laughed and shook her head. “No, my Lady, I do not think it will rain today.”

In response, Belle made the sort of grumbling, whining noise the people of the castle had come to expect when she could not yet find the words for what she wanted to say. That was more likely to drive the young girl to tears those days than anything else, the restrictions her small vocabulary placed on her ability to tell those around her went on inside her busy little mind. She went back to her play, then, but her nurse noticed that she seemed less interested in the doll than she had been before.

A week later, a torrential rainstorm came up in the middle of the night with no warning. Still, such things were not unheard of in the Marchlands, and Belle's nurse barely thought of her tiny charge's earlier proclamation, much less of repeating it to the Lord. And if, two days after Belle chirped that 'Mellie's hurt', the silly scullery maid burned her hand, it was merely a coincidence not worth thinking over.

Thus, everyone in the household easily brushed off all their little lady's eccentricities, being far too enamored with her charms and sweetness to consider anything about her might be less than normal. That is, until the night three months before her fifth birthday when she woke up not only sobbing, but with a shrill scream that brought even her sleeping parents running in fear. For several minutes, no one could get a sensible word from the clearly frightened child; she only sobbed and burrowed her face in her nurse's nightgown. The adults stood around uneasily, not sure what to do with the clearly terrified child who had replaced their headstrong little Belle.

Finally, the sobbing slowed to deep hiccuping breaths, and Belle mumbled a few inaudible words against her nurse's breast.

“What was that, my lady?” the woman asked as she tenderly rubbed a hand up and down her charge's back. Belle drew in a loud, gulping breath, before finally looking up into her nurse's eyes. The old woman swallowed tensely when she saw just how pale the child was even in the dark, but made herself smile for the little girl's sake.

Sniffing, Belle rubbed a wrist under her nose before whispering just loud enough for those gathered around to hear.

“Mama's mouth is red.”

A tense, confused silence filled the room then, as everyone tried to figure out what the little girl could mean by that, and why that was what had seemingly terrified her so. Finally, Lady Rose let go of her husband's hand and walked to the small bed, kneeling down to her daughters level with a gentle smile.

“No, darling, see?” she stroked the child's cheek tenderly. “Nothing is wrong with my mouth, nothing at all. It was only a dream. Everything's fine,” she kissed Belle's forehead then, “Now be a good girl and go back to sleep.”

Belle watched, tearfully, as her parents left the room, but put up no further fuss when her nurse tucked the covers back around her. The woman stood over her charge for some time, watching as she fell back to sleep and trying not to worry at the tight look that stayed on the small child's face even as she went back to dreaming. The next morning, not even Belle spoke about whatever had frightened her and they all tried to put it out of their minds.

They might just have succeeded if not for the fact that four months later, the Lady Rose began coughing up blood. And still everyone in the castle tried not to connect this fact to the little girl's nocturnal terror, going to incredibly great lengths to hide her mother's condition from her. But as always, Belle sought out the truth—especially when it tried to evade her. When a maid, in a nervous hurry to take the bloodied linens away from Lady Rose's bedchamber, dropped a handkerchief as she was passing Belle and her nurse, Belle wrenched herself from the matron's grasp and darted for the slip of fabric before either woman could stop her. They both froze, pale and wide-eyed, as the little girl furrowed her brow at the spattered pattern on the cloth. Surely she couldn't be seeing something in that, too?

Finally, after a very long minute, Belle bit her lip and let the handkerchief fall back to the ground. She said nothing on the walk back to her nursery, but the nurse did see her rubbing her tiny wrist over her eyes many times on the way. And when it became clear, just a few weeks later, that no potion or poultice would save Lady Rose and her daughter was taken to see her one last time, the little girl began to truly wail for the first time in her short life. Just like that terrifying night, for some time the words coming from her small mouth were incomprehensible. But when her mother stroked her hair with a trembling hand and made creaking shushing noises in her ear, Belle finally sniffed and managed two clear words.

  
“My fault,” she whispered. And while the servants and the Lord remained conspicuously silent, Lady Rose just smiled.

“No, my darling,” she croaked, “You didn't do this. You only saw it. Promise me you'll remember that.”

Belle bit her lip, looking as though she might cry again, but nodded furiously and burrowed her head against her mother's neck. Over her daughter's head, Lady Rose met the eyes of her husband and servants, her gaze full of too much worry and pained understanding for what they all finally realized, far too late to beg it changed or returned, the fumbling little fairy had given their young lady.


	2. Chapter 2

No one in the castle was terribly shocked when, after placing the pink rose against her mother's breast, Belle fled the funeral. The little girl had been trembling all through the blessings for Lady Rose's spirit, small white teeth firmly sunk into her lip as she fought her tears. So while the few dignitaries and merchants who had come to pay their respects turned strange looks to the girl as she walked away, primly but with an underlying haste in her step, her father simply nodded at her nurse who followed behind with a similar urgency, leaving her master to murmur something about the child not yet understanding how or why her mother would no longer be with her.

The problem, of course, was that Belle understood far too well.

Agnes thought, at first, that her charge would flee to the nursery. But halfway there, she shook her head and turned right to ascend the staircase that lead to the library. Belle had started to read almost before she could walk, and while there was always the danger that she would tumble after climbing a high shelf or upend a heavy tome onto her tiny head, for the most part it was viewed as the safest place in the castle for her. She had no interest in playing with the flame of the candles there, nor in spilling ink just to watch how it ran over paper or any other number of minor or major accidents. There, she could be trusted to spend at least an hour in silence and almost-complete stillness; in fact, the most trouble that came from Belle going to the library was the chance of her raising a fuss when asked to leave. It was the place she most often ran to when she didn't wish to be dressed and presented to her father's visitors or to be forced to spend time with Sir Orwin's son, Gaston, who her father hoped to have her betrothed to in due time. So, Agnes reasoned now, it would make sense that the young lady would have gone there now to escape this much larger interruption in her life.

It came as little surprise to her, then, when she saw the large wooden door slightly ajar. Gently, Agnes brushed it open a bit further and stepped just inside the threshold to peek in on her charge. She wasn't surprised to see Belle cross-legged on the floor, black velvet skirt stretched indecently across her legs and hair falling out of its pinnings as she leaned over. What was surprising, however, was that she didn't seem to be reading. Carefully stepping in a bit closer, Agnes saw that Belle was studying a sheaf of parchment rather than a leather-bound book, and that her teeth were nibbling at the end of quill before dipping it back into the inkwell at her side and scribbling with a furious determination that made Agnes frown. Belle had never taken much interest in her penmanship lessons, much to her father's frustration. Why would she be spurning books in favor of writing _now_?

For a moment, Agnes considered simply backing away and telling the Lord that Belle was just reading. But something about the little girl's intense focus on her work left her nurse unsettled, as she thought of what Lady Rose had told her daughter that last day and all that had come before. She had tried not to worry about her young lady's eccentricities before, but now it was impossible not to wonder about what might be consuming her tiny mind. Deciding not to concern His Lordship just yet, seeing as he would still be dealing with the guests and larger matters, Agnes carefully stepped into the room and very gently shut the door behind her before walking towards her charge.

Not that she need have worried about being heard; even as her shadow loomed over the young girl, Belle continued to scribble without slowing her hurried pace except for the briefest of moments to bite the tip of her quill or shoved a lock of hair from her face. Despite her unease, Agnes couldn't help smiling at that; no matter what any of them tried to do with it, Belle's hair—much like the child herself—seemed to have a mind all its own. She waited until Belle's hand stopped again to tend to her curls before announcing herself by clearing her throat. Quiet though it was, Belle was very used to being caught in moments of mischief by such a gesture that she immediately sat up and tilted her head back to her nurse. Before she could start making excuses or stories (which, at only five, she was quite skilled at), Agnes shook her head.

“I was only looking for you, my Lady. Your father was quite worried when you ran off like that,” she said soothingly, walking around to stand behind Belle and peer at what she had been so determinedly working at. Some of it, Agnes thought, might have been letters—but she couldn't make heads nor tails of it. Mostly, it just looked like swirling lines and circles all twining together. Realizing the sharp child would soon catch her squinting at the work, Agnes added hurriedly, “You should have told one of us.”

Belle's brow furrowed, and Agnes saw her little chin bob as she swallowed down tears for what must have been the twentieth time that day. “I'm sorry, Agnes,” she said quietly. “I didn't mean to scare you and Papa. But I needed...” she ran her fingers along one of the swirling lines, looping around and following it through the confusing tangle. Agnes wondered if, as was often the case, Belle was searching for a word she couldn't find, and held her breath in waiting. Finally, Belle sniffed and spoke, eyes still fixed firmly on her paper.

“Mama said—that it wasn't my fault. That—I didn't make her get sick,” she said, in such a tight, scared voice that made Agnes want to hold the little girl to her breast and hide her away from all the fears that clearly tormented her. It broke her heart to see her brave, bold little lady this way. Instead, she simply nodded.

“That's right, my Lady,” she whispered, crouching beside her now. “There's nothing you did that could have hurt your mother.”

“But...” Belle's eyes met hers then, and for a moment Agnes could have sworn she was looking directly at Lady Rose for how hard and serious this gaze was. “I _saw_ it. Why can I _see_ things if I can't _do_ anything?” Belle shook her head then, curls flying.

“I could have saved Mama, I know it. I just didn't see it. There's...” she blinked then, tear drops falling onto her paper as she looked at it. “It's all—messy. In my head. All—tangled, like Marie's knitting.”

In any other circumstance, that analogy would have made Agnes smile. As it was, she carefully began to fix Belle's hair, using her job as a guise to try and soothe her charge. “Well. You may try straightening it all out tomorrow. Right now, you've had a very big day and scared your poor father and me.” She patted Belle's curls with trembling fingers, trying to put the image out of her mind of all manner of horrible tragedies rattling around in the little girl's head. “Put all this away and we'll go tell him you're all right together, hmm?”

She felt Belle's shoulder's tense beneath her hands, and prepared herself for the sort of fight that often accompanied leaving this very room for far different reasons. Instead, Belle let out her breath on a sigh and nodded,

“Yes, Agnes,” she said, standing very quickly then and putting up the ink before gathering the papers in her hands, holding them close as Agnes stood to lead her from the room. Knowing the little girl's sharp eye would see, she resisted the temptation to peek at them as they walked back to His Lordship. All the merchants and dignitaries were gone by then, so he wasted no time in gathering Belle in his arms the moment they crossed the threshold, his admonishments far softer than they would have been had there been spectators in the room. Agnes did smile at that; she'd served a Duke before coming to Sir Maurice's castle, and that man and the Duchess had been far more distant to their three children. Despite the chill Belle's words had set into her bones, Agnes had no doubt that whatever became of her, his Lordship would never disown her and would do anything in his power to protect her from whatever harm her 'gift' might bring. They all would.

 

For three years, Sir Maurice and his household managed to keep Belle's gifts hidden, although it truly required little effort on their part. For five years, after the day of her mother's funeral, Belle rarely spoke a word of strange dreams or the tiny prophecies she'd spouted in the past, not even to Agnes or her father. Instead, she spent much of her days either reading—Agnes noticed her often straying away from the tales of traveling heroes she'd so loved before and choosing instead her father's histories, but never asked why—and her evenings occupied with her strange drawings. Many nights, Agnes or one of the other staff would find her up well past her bedtime hunched over the parchment, biting her lip or the end of the quill every few moments before scribbling away again. As she grew older and her hand more steady, Agnes was sometimes—in the rare moments she was able to peek before Belle noticed and hastily smiled and rattled off some story and hurried away—able to make out the path of the looping lines and, increasingly, the words that ran alongside them.

The words were always scrunched together tightly, so even if Agnes had been given full access to the strange documents they would have been nearly indecipherable. Still, over time she noticed a few words occurring over and over: _fire_ and  _blood_ and _gold_ and, most disturbingly, _curse._ She could never find any connection between the words, or the paths they were written along, but they always made her breath still for a moment or two before she regained her composure and gently chastised Belle for staying up so late writing by the waning candle, telling her she'd go blind if she kept this up. For her part, Belle's face would always lose the overly focused, strained look it had and she would beam and laugh and lean up to kiss Agnes' weathered cheek, thanking her for her concern.

Despite this odd, almost nightly ritual, everything seemed almost normal again, and Sir Maurice continued to talk of betrothing Belle to young Gaston—after all, if she was able to keep what she saw contained in writing, what harm could it do?

Then a fortnight before her ninth birthday, Agnes went to wake Belle as she did every day—while she clearly tossed and turned a great deal, if the state of her hair in the mornings was any indicator, Belle was a very hard sleeper and would very rarely wake without a great deal of prompting—by pulling back the curtains from her bed to let the sunlight pour onto her face. Agnes never saw this as any chore, in part because her young lady's face looked so beautiful in the sunbeams; her beauty coming so much from her mother and yet also something that was uniquely her. Agnes smiled, as usual, though her brow creased when Belle didn't grumble and stir as the sun fell over her eyelids.

“It's time to get up, my lady,” she said briskly. “Remember you've a lesson with Clara this morning.”

At that, Belle grumbled—as she was wont to do at the mere mention of her etiquette instructor—and started to sit up. “I'm awake, Agn—” she stopped, in the middle of rubbing the sleep from her eyes, gaze dropping to her lap.

“Agnes?” she said, voice suddenly tiny though still steady. Always worried when Belle became so quickly serious, Agnes stepped closer, not daring to touch the young girl though she wanted to badly as she felt a sense of dread over come her.

“Yes, my lady?” she said warmly, hoping—for the first time ever—that Belle had just been overcome by some worrying vision. She quickly began to fear it was much worse than that when Belle remained silent and began worrying at the covers with her hands.

“I...I can't...” she visibly swallowed, shoulders trembling, before she lifted her head.

“I can't  _see_ ,” she said quietly, just as she turned to look over her shoulder at Agnes. Or rather, she _would_ have been looking if—Agnes thought, stomach turning—her always-dazzling blue eyes had not been dimmed and overcast with a milky haze, turning them a foggy gray. It took every bit of composure the old nurse had not to scream or otherwise voice her fear; even if maintaining decorum hadn't been a requirement of her station, she couldn't show her terror for Belle's sake. The child certainly had enough fear of her own, which she was also trying so clearly to control; she didn't need the burden of someone else's.

With very controlled movements, Agnes carefully smoothed back the little girl's hair and put on a smile that Belle would at least hear even if she couldn't see. “I'm sure it's nothing that can't be cleared up with an ointment. Maybe now you'll listen to your old nurse when she tells you not to read in the dark so much, won't you?” she tried to laugh, then,but it came out more of a shaky cough.

Belle, however, beamed—Agnes had no idea how, with all she'd already experienced and knew, the child was able to maintain such hope, or at least the face of it. “Yes, Agnes.” She moved the blankets off her legs, then, and grabbed hold of the bed post to steady herself as she felt her way around her nightstand. When she held her hand out in front of her, Agnes took it—hoping the tremors in her own weren't felt—and guided Belle into place to help her dress and brush her hair. As she went through the familiar motions, Agnes silently prayed to every god she thought might be of any help; one of them, she thought, just _had_ to listen and look kindly on the child. For all her mischief and persistent curiosity, Belle was still a good child; she couldn't have done anything to deserve to lose even more.

 

Agnes was right, but not in the way she'd hoped to be. Of course Belle had done nothing, and her sudden blindness was not retribution for any action she or anyone else in the castle had committed. However, when no amount of ointments or tonics or herbs restored her sight, it was none of the gods who answered the increasingly loud prayers of the household. It was another type of visitor entirely who came to the castle early one evening, nearly a month later, as Agnes was untangling Belle's hair before bed.

“You've been wishing loud enough for an entire kingdom,” the Blue Fairy said, nearly laughing when Agnes dropped the brush. Belle's still-clouded eyes turned to the source of the voice, and she smiled, voice bright and excited.

“That's the Blue Fairy, isn't it, Agnes?” she said, leaning forward so much Agnes was worried for a moment she might fall to the floor. Agnes swallowed, setting the brush aside and smoothing the child's hair with her fingers—more to calm herself than the little girl. “Yes, my lady,” she said quietly.

The Blue Fairy grinned, fluttering close between the two of them. “You knew I was coming, didn't you, Belle?”

Agnes saw Belle bite her lip, but she nodded firmly. “Yes your—Blue Fairy, ma'am.”

The fairy laughed warmly, “There's no need to call me ma'am, Belle. I'm just the Blue Fairy.” She flitted to rest on the bedpost, looking at the two of them but clearly more focused on Belle. “You're quite a gifted girl, Belle.”

Agnes managed a nervous smile as Belle flushed and ducked her head. “Thank you,” she said, quietly. Agnes noticed, then, how she was twisting her nightdress in her hands, the way she had the morning she'd woken with the cloudy film over her eyes. For some reason she couldn't quite name, this small motion made Agnes' pulse hammer in her throat.

She soon understood that heavy feeling, though, as the fairy's mouth fell. “You know I'm not just talking about how well you can read and write, don't you?” she said quietly, though even with her voice being so small already, it seemed to fill the room.

Belle nodded, silently, and Agnes instinctively put an arm around her shoulders as the fairy spoke again. “Your father told you about the gift you received as an infant, didn't he?”

“He—he said a fairy gave it to me. Not you, a fairy who worked for you,” Belle said, voice and body shrinking then, as she pulled herself close to her nurse. Agnes knew the Blue Fairy wouldn't hurt the child, and yet she still instinctively wanted to shield her charge from whatever truth was about to come from her.

“That's right,” the Blue Fairy said. “She gave you a very large gift, larger than we fairies are supposed to give except in very special circumstances. She was very young, like you, and didn't understand what she was doing. Do you know why we're not supposed to give humans gifts like yours, Belle?”

Belle hesitated then, shaking her head, then quickly nodding instead. Agnes frowned at this, confused, until the Fairy spoke again.

“You knew I was coming, didn't you? Like you knew about what was to happen to your mother?” the Fairy whispered, hovering close again and resting on Belle's knee.

Belle nodded again, and Agnes' heart spasmed when she saw teardrops fall from her chin. “You came to say why you can't fix my eyes,” she said, hiccuping a little.

The Fairy nodded, “That's right, Belle,” she said, voice still low and soft And you knew I couldn't a long time ago, didn't you?”

Agnes heard a little sob choked in the back of Belle's throat, swallowed down before she lifted her head. “Yes,” Belle whispered. “Because—magic comes with a price. I read that in a book. That's why most humans can't do it and why you don't help us all the time even when we ask nicely.”

The Blue Fairy nodded solemnly. “You're right. All magic comes with a price, even very little bits of magic. And the magic that gave you your gift wasn't small; it required a very big price. The fairy who gave it to you didn't know that, and by the time we all realized what she'd done....” she sighed, “It was too late.”

While Belle simply nodded, clearly accepting what she must have known for weeks if not months, Agnes felt herself shaking. How was it right, that a child was paying this much for something none of them had asked for?

“How long have you known this?” she said, sharply. “How long have you known and told no one? Even if you could do nothing, you could have—“ she cut herself off, pressing her lips firmly together before she gave into the anguished rage she felt filling her. _Remember your place, Agnes_ , she tried to tell herself, hand restlessly smoothing Belle's hair. But His Lordship was in his study, completely unaware, leaving her the only one to try and speak for their young lady who deserved so much more than a life quite literally filled with darkness. There could certainly be no marriage for her now, and Agnes was certain His Lordship wouldn't remarry, which would mean that Belle would someday be left without husband or brother to care for her. She'd already lost enough; she didn't deserve to lose her whole future.

She was stunned—though she later supposed she shouldn't have been—when Belle sniffed and turned her face up with a smile. “She couldn't help, Agnes. And—“ her brow furrowed, in the way it always did as she searched for the way to put the swirling thoughts in her mind. “And...I knew. After Mama died. I started—the things I saw changed,” she bit her lip, shrugging a little. “I—I just didn't want to scare you or Father. Because I didn't know...” she huffed. “It doesn't all come true. I thought—this might be like that.” Her smile faltered, unseeing eyes falling to her lap again. “It wasn't.”

As a heavy silence fell, the Blue Fairy fluttered off Belle's leg and hovered just in front of Agnes' nose, meeting her eyes. “I could have done nothing,” she said, firmly. “I only came now because you were all wishing so loudly it was disturbing the fairies' work. The child knew, and that was enough.” The gaze that met Agnes' did grow sad, then, as she looked at the two of them. “I am sorry,” she said, “but there are some rules even I cannot break. Belle is the only one who can pay the price for her gift. But,” the fairy's face brightened again, “if she uses it correctly, it _will_ be a gift.”

“Can I change things?” Belle said, with an excitement that stunned Agnes. “The bad things I see, can I stop them happening? Like what happened to Mama?”

The fairy chuckled, “You are quite an eager child, aren't you?” she shook her head, fluttering back a bit. “I cannot say for certain if you can change things. But, you can at least see what may be. And that could be enough, sometimes.”

While Agnes hardly understood what had been said, Belle seemed satisfied, pausing just a moment before nodding solemnly. And with that, the fairy blinked away in a blue light, leaving Agnes to puzzle out the meaning behind those words as she went through the motions of putting Belle to bed, finally, and then to tell His Lordship what had passed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle explores her powers further, and beings to catch glimpses of a new future for herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hey, sorry for the ridiculous long wait. For those of you who don't follow me on tumblr, I had a lot of LIFE happen (graduated, job hunting, getting a job, getting horrible hours, etc) but hopefully it's been worth the wait!

         Of course, it had hardly been as simple as passing the word that the young Lady's condition would not be changing and carrying on as normal. For weeks, his Lordship agonized over just what to do with his young daughter. Marriage was, of course, out of the question. Keeping her visions secret was one matter; hiding the nature of her sudden loss of eyesight quite another.  Other men in his position might have had the child sent away, or at the very least locked in the highest tower seen to by a single maid sworn to silence, never visited by anyone who truly loved her or given anything to keep her mind alive. But Sir Maurice loved his daughter far too much for that; not only because she was looking every day more and more like her dearly departed mother, but because she was his darling little Belle.  She'd already had so  much of the world taken from her, he would not take any more than he could help, even if it would make his own life more difficult. Even if it would mean the possibility of remarrying was completely gone, it was one he'd never truly considered for long anyway. As long as Belle was given as much of a life as she could have under the circumstances, he'd count himself lucky and would find his happiness through hers.

            So in the end, she was not disposed to the countryside or shut away in the tower.  But everyone besides the closest household staff were told, with a sadness that was sincere even if the words were not, that the little Lady had been taken by a horrible illness to join her mother once more, and that the healers had advised against a viewing of her body in case the wickedness that had stolen her light away wasn't yet done. There was even a pyre built, the people kept at a distance so they couldn't see the 'body' being burnt as merely a straw doll in a dress Belle had outgrown a year before. The governess wept as she left for the final time, the advisor's mumbled sage words, and young Gaston's father ground out some kind of condolence while in the same breath searching the crowd for another young girl for his son.

            And although she would have been forbidden to watch even if she could still see, Belle knew it all. In her rooms, her hand fumbled for the quill, the other carefully holding the ink pot steady as she dipped it in, then holding the parchment still as she made a long dash through a line, splitting it in two. One path gone. Her hand looped around carefully from that point, drawing a long arcing line right from where the dash stopped the first dead. One path made.

            Her teeth bit into the quill end as she pictured the line's path in her mind. She didn't like where it lead at all. Dead end. Not death, exactly. Not what happened to her Mama, no bloody painful end. Just nothing. This wing, these walls, these servants. That was to be her life, as far as she could see. But the Blue Fairy had said that seeing might be enough to change things. And Belle knew she'd Seen goodness in the Blue Fairy that evening, just like she saw it in her Papa and Agnes and everyone else in the castle, so she had to have been telling the truth.

            Belle set the quill down for a moment, brow furrowing in the direction of the paper and the looping lines drawn upon it, trying to see _past_ the abrupt end. She'd tried this before, after Mama died—after the assurance that she'd done nothing, only _seen—_ and sometimes she'd been able to see the pictures in her head just a little clearer, hear things that had been muffled before. It was never much, only tiny pieces filled in, and before it always made her eyesight blur and her head ache terribly so she always stopped trying after a few minutes. But now that her eyes weren't ever going to work again, maybe the headaches would go away too. Maybe now that she'd paid her price, she'd be able to see  beyond all the fire and dark things so that she could finally _do_ something about them.

            At first, there was only the grey, fuzzy nothing she'd seen stretching beyond this day.  But she bit her lip and screwed up her nose as she tried to push her way past it.  Slowly, very slowly, the grey started to give way to a blinding white and duller green and brown. There was a pain behind her eyes, sharper than the headaches, but she just shut them tight against the burning—it didn't help, really, but it made it easier to focus on the dizzying shapes, somehow. She didn't even feel the tears trickling down her face, or hear the footfall on the stairs outside her door. Instead she felt a slight tickle of cold air brushing past her face, making her shiver a bit; heard men's voices laughing and talking, loud but unclear. She tried to make out what they were saying, who they were, where they were.  Then there was a blast of icy wind, not just the little whispering breeze that had been playing at her nose, the sound of someone breathing close by, and although she couldn't quite make out his face, Belle was able to hear him say three words very clearly, before the vision was once more covered in the heavy grey silence.

            _“You're a child.”_

            Of course she tried to break through the fog again, tried to see the man's face or hear what else  he said—or what she must have said to him, because she knew he'd been speaking to her—but all that happened was her face grew very hot, and though she fought to stay sitting up, Belle felt herself fall onto her warm plush rug, only dimly hearing the crinkling of the parchment beneath her arm before everything—even inside her head—went quiet and black. 

 

            Sometime later Belle became aware of the world outside herself again. She could hear Agnes murmuring, although like the words in her visions they were very quiet and hard to understand, and felt something cold touching her face—a washcloth, she realized after a long moment of trying to remember the word. She tried to sit up, but felt herself being gently pushed down, aware then that she'd been moved to her bed.

            “Ah-ah, none of that,” Agnes said, suddenly clear and firm, although the tender hand stroking her hair back showed she was more worried than angry.  “You gave your father and me quite a scare when I came to get you.  Your head was so hot I thought you were about to start on fire. You're not getting up until I say, understood?”  
  
            Although she wanted very much to tell Agnes that she was fine, to sit up and rattle on about what she'd done to get herself so worked up, the fact that her head was still hurting made her realize that her nurse was probably right—as she often was.  And while _she_ was excited by the small flicker of hope that she might step outside these walls again one day, something inside her told Belle that talking of this particular vision—and why she'd had it—would only make Agnes worry. So, she simply huffed as she always did when told to do something 'for her own good', turning her head towards where she'd heard her nurse's voice.  
  
            “Yes, Agnes, I understand,” she said, with just enough of a pout to make the old woman laugh and pat her hand.  
  
            “Good. I'll be up to help you with dinner in a little while, and your father will come read to you if you're still awake after that.”

            Belle nodded—something she quickly wished she hadn't done, because it made her head feel like it wasn't quite on right—and carefully settled herself back down on the bed.  But before she heard Agnes' leave the room entirely, she swallowed and carefully raised her head.

            “Agnes?” she said, softly and with a touch of hesitance, as she knew her nurse was probably going to be confused by her request. “Could you bring me the parchment I was working with? I promise I'll be very careful and won't get any ink on the covers.”

            She felt the old woman's hesitation—after all, she hadn't liked to have Belle write in bed or nice clothes when she could still use her eyes—but after a very long moment that made Belle worry she was going to be told to 'wait until you're better,  my lady,' she heard Agnes sigh and cross the room.

            “So long as you're careful,” Agnes said, and Belle heard her smirk—knowing her nurse was already seeing a disaster of the full ink pot spilled on the bedclothes, even as she gathered the things. “I'll put the inkpot on your night table. You're not to be using it while you're eating, though.”

            Belle grinned, a motion that felt like it might split her head too, as she felt the brush of parchment against the side of her hand and heard the light thump of the bottle against wood. “I promise. Thank you, Agnes.”  
  
            “Hmm,” Agnes grumbled gently.  “I'll be back soon.”  
  
            Belle gently waved her acknowledgement, waiting until she heard the door open and shut before gingerly picking up the quill, dipping it in the ink, and ever-so-slowly, drawing out the new path she had glimpsed for herself.

 

            Despite having every plan and hope they held for Belle fall to pieces virtually overnight, for six years the Lord and his household felt a strange sort of peace.  They all adjusted their routines with amazing speed, and outside of taking fewer social calls and no longer trying to find a suitor for their young Lady, very little truly changed. True, His Lordship did spend more time with his daughter; not that he had been distant before, but as she could no longer read for herself, Lord Maurice spent every evening (and as many mornings and afternoons as he could spare from his duties) reading aloud to his daughter from any book she asked. At first, they were the sorts of things he had always known her to be interested in—stories of dragons vanquished by mighty knights and journeys to find lost treasures. But as she grew, she asked for things that both pleased and puzzled him; drier tomes of the history of their land and wars that were long forgotten. Still, the fact that her face would always light up, her eyes shining in such a way that made him momentarily forget they would never see him again, made any argument or question about her choices die on his tongue before they could be asked.

            She was still given lessons, although more focused on languages, politics, and steadying her blind penmanship than on dancing and etiquette. And if her wardrobe was no longer what others might have considered fashionable—she no longer had a need for ballgowns or heels, after all, and there was no one to be scandalized by the skirts that bared her ankles but also allowed her to walk without tripping—everyone in the castle agreed that she was still quite beautiful, and felt it quite a shame that no one else was likely to ever see her as she blossomed from a gangly child into a woman who resembled her mother more and more every day. All in all, although there was always an undercurrent of sadness in them, the people of the castle were quite happy—especially because, for those six years, Belle never uttered another dire prophecy such as the one that had foretold her mother's unfortunate fate.

            Oh, she didn't stop _prophesying._ She often chatted with Agnes, or the other trusted maids, about the things she Saw while they helped her go about her day.  Quite regularly, she answered questions they'd only been thinking about asking, regarding things they'd only mentioned in passing if at all. For example, one morning just after she’d turned thirteen, as one of the maids was pouring her tea and she was working one of her innumerable charts, Belle lifted her head with a soft smile and reached her free hand out to the touch the young woman’s arm.

            “Your sister’s going to be fine. Her and the baby,” she said quietly. There was a soft clatter of porcelain as the maid fumbled with the saucer, almost upending it entirely and even as she caught it some of the tea splashed over the rim onto the parchment Belle was working on, causing the ink to run and the looping path to bleed down the page.

            “Oh—I, I’m so sorry, my lady,” the woman stammered, reaching to blot at the page before Belle stopped her again.

            “It’s all right, Marie. I shouldn’t have startled you like that. I just—I thought you would like to know. You’ve been so worried about her, after all.”

            Even without seeing, Belle could hear the smile on the maid’s face. “Yes, My Lady. I—thank you. That’s very nice to know.” There was more clattering as Marie fumbled to put the cream in the tea without spilling too much, stirring it a little too quickly so a few drops found their way to Belle’s skin. She tried to wipe those away, too, but Belle just gently shook her off and turned her blind gaze back to her work without seeming to notice the cup beside her. Clearing her throat, Marie curtseyed—a habit all of them still kept, even though Belle couldn’t see it.

            “I’ll be going, then—thank you,” she stammered, gathering up the tray and walking out of the room a touch too quickly and with obviously shaking hands. Belle just sighed, drawing another line through the smudged one she had been making it, severing it in one place and arching off in another.  She wasn’t sure she should have said _anything_ to Marie but the vision of the pale blonde woman cooing over her child just kept haunting her—along with the one she knew would have caused the already-nervous Marie to probably break all the cups and likely hurt herself: her sister holding that same child, just days later, and falling to her knees as she received news of her husband’s death.

            _That_ was the secret to the Marchlands’ tense peace for all those years: while she continued to have horrifying visions of fire and war and loss, Belle only ever passed on the news of good rains and marriages and joy.  Not every vision was _true_ after all; over time, she came to realize that it was only the ones that came again and again, growing clearer and louder with each day, that would come to pass. Others though—sometimes she Saw a man fall from his horse and break his head, but the next night the same man regained his balance and lived to see another day.  And even if each dark vision had been the truth, she reasoned that her people would experience that pain soon enough and that she didn’t need to have _them_ burdened with it for weeks or months, not when she knew just how heavy that burden could be.

            There was one set of visions, however, that Belle never spoke of not to keep the household safe from fear, but because somehow she felt they were solely _hers_. That they were not meant to warn or plan, not in the same way as visions of storms or war,  but just for her to study and enjoy.  Although she remembered talking excitedly about him—and so many other strange things—when she was a small child, as she grew older, Belle kept the visions of the man who spun straw into gold all to herself.

            Unlike all the others, which could assail her at any time, she only Saw him in sleep.

            Although she Saw his face, Heard his laugh, and could even sometimes make out a few short quips, for years Belle didn't know his name. She would search for it every night he came into her mind, trying to lean closer or find some way to prompt him to speak it, fighting her body's pull to wake for as long as she could. She would rue it in the morning, of course—waking in tangled, sweat drenched sheets, weak-legged and feeling as if her head had been pounded repeatedly with rocks and her eyes prodded with sticks with nothing more to show for her efforts than the last time—but she kept at it still, not only because she just wanted to know _everything_ her visions could tell her  as she had as a child, but because she found she wanted to know _him;_ this strange, funny, sad man whose face and hands and voice always left her heart feeling sore and her guts aching for something she couldn’t quite name.

            Then, one night, just days after her fourteenth birthday, it came to her. It was in one of the visions where his skin was strange and he wore clothes that made something low in the pit of her stomach feel warm and almost sick in a way she didn't understand. He was talking to her, waving his hands around as he always did when he looked like that, and while she couldn't make out anything more than a high titter from him. When she heard her own voice reply, it was just as muddy except for one word. One word that made her feet struggle with the bedclothes, crashing to the floor before she was even awake, and sent her hands flying for the parchment and quill perennially at her bedside. She didn't even take the time to hold the parchment taut with her free hand, she just wrote, feverishly. Logically, she should have taken the time to write the word slowly and clearly, as something told her that unlike her winding charts, this would be important someday. But the same something also told her that, no matter what, this one word would remain clear no matter how much her hand trembled and the quill skidded across the paper—just as clear as she muttered it while she wrote, repeated like some kind of prayer and dripping off her tongue like honey.

_Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestilskin...._


	4. Chapter 4

If knowing more of the strange, fascinating man had been the only event of Belle's fourteenth year, it likely would have been her best since before the vision that had foretold her mother's death. For one wonderful fortnight, she only Saw him. Sometimes his skin was like a man's and he looked so sad and alone that Belle was almost grateful she could rarely make out his words, sure they would have made her heart break. And at other times, his skin was that strange golden-green that almost sparkled in the rare moments when it caught the light, so beautiful she'd wake with her hands clenched from the desire to touch, yet with an aura of darkness covering him that made her both want to shrink away and find out just who or what had changed him so. When she saw him do what was clearly magic, whorls of purple smoke coming from his hands and turning men into snails, she wondered if he'd been 'gifted' as she had; if, perhaps, she Saw him so often because he was the only other human like her, another who wasn't _supposed_ to possess the gifts he did, if the darkness she could See eating him up was his price as blindness was hers.

She wondered if that was why the visions comforted her so much, even the most painful ones. Why she always came out of them drained as always, but also with a myriad of strange sensations in her body she'd never experienced before. Seeing him always made her heart hammer in her throat and the queerest kind of warmth coil between her trembling legs; and although she rarely Saw much that allowed her to draw any sort of clear path, find out just how she would become part of his life, she would still always find herself writing them down in her trembling scrawl with extreme detail, a tiny smile on her face the entire time.

But less than a month after discovering his name, another sort of vision came to Belle in the night, the kind she hid from the people she loved not to have her own private delight but so that she was the only one who would pale at the images of blood and pain. But instead of Seeing one person die, this time, she Saw dozens—possibly hundreds. All men, which somehow made their cacaphony of screams even more chilling. She fought to wake from it while it was still only a foggy blur of blood and limbs and screams, but this time the heavy fog seemed not only to obscure her vision, but also to bog her down within it. She could dimly feel her body tossing in her sheets, struggling to wake, as she Heard a loud crashing noise, Felt the ground trembling and—just before she finally lurched awake—Saw a creature almost half the height of her own tower pick up a man and _squeeze...._

It took several seconds for Belle to realize the screaming she heard was not that of the men in her vision, but her own, echoing around her chamber. Her fingers groped around clumsily, trying to find where she was when she realized she was on her knees, having apparently fallen out of the bed in her tormented thrashings. Taking trembling gulps of breath around the bile she could feel rising in her seizing stomach, she began to try and disentangle her legs from the bedclothes before Agnes—who had surely been roused by the screaming, if not the sound of her body falling from the bed—thundered into the room. As she finally managed to stand, Belle felt the the strangest sensation of something moving across the skin of her inner thigh. Even though she knew Agnes couldn't be far off now—could hear the shuffling of her nightdress signalling that she was nearly to the door—Belle took a second to hitch up her nightgown, fingers moving across her skin quickly, gathering up something slick that smelled a little musky and bitter when she brought her hand to her face.

Before she could fully pull her mind away from the memory of crunching bones and horrifying screams to puzzle out the source of the slickness on her fingers, Belle heard the sound of wood hitting stone and her dear nurse's panting breath.

“My Lady? What's happened?” the old woman gasped, and Belle felt more terrible than ever for startling her so. It didn't matter how often Agnes had told her, since she was a little girl, that she was no trouble—her 'gift' always caused fear and worry for all of them, but especially Agnes, and even without being able to _see_ her, Belle knew she had to be as white as some of the visions told her the old woman's hair had gone in recent years. It was for her sake, then, that she put on what she very much hoped was a smile.

“Oh, I just fell out of bed and startled myself, Agnes. I'm sorry if I--” the words _worried you_ were stopped on the tip of her tongue, though, as she felt those familiar, thin fingers around her wrist. “Agnes?” she said, quietly, her nurse's silence almost more worrying than visions of fire and death.

She received less answer than she had from the vision, though, finding herself gently moved to one of her chairs and the room suddenly filled with Agnes' familiar clucking as the old woman moved about the room. Her fear over the terrifying images that had roused her was quickly replaced by simple confusion as she heard the water in her basin splashing, felt her nightdress being moved, just slightly, and the rough chill of a cloth moving over her thigh.

“Should've seen this coming,” she heard Agnes mutter under her breath, followed by the sound of the cloth being wrung out and dipped back in the water.

“Should have seen what, Agnes?” Belle said, trying to keep fear from her voice—because _she_ certainly hadn't Seen it, whatever it was, so what could the old nurse possibly be chastising herself for not expecting?

She was answered with a heavy sigh and familiar, thin fingers tucking a bit of hair behind her ear. “Surely you don't need your eyes to know you're not a little girl any more, my lady. You've been halfway to a grown woman for some time now, and this is just the last of it.” Belle could feel something sad in Agnes' hand as it moved down her face, palm holding her cheek for just a moment before pulling back. “You could have a child now, if...”

_If any man would have a blind, half-mad wife_ , Belle finished in her mind, suddenly feeling her eyes fill with tears. She had never let herself think on that for very long before, all the possibilities that had been twisted off when her sight was taken and replaced by the visions. She remembered enough of Gaston to know she wouldn't have wanted him if she'd had any say in the matter. But now—with her body's sharp reminder of what could have been _if only—_ she realized she wanted _someone._ Someone who might come from outside the castle walls to share her days, to hold her as men held the women in the poems only the young giggling maids would read for her, who might give her a family so she wouldn't be alone when her father and Agnes were gone.

Before the tears could fall, though, she felt a gentle hand on her her thigh. “What do you say I go make us some tea my dear?”

Belle squeezed her eyes shut quickly, so Agnes wouldn't see the pain—or see it more, if she already had. “Yes, that would be...lovely, thank you Agnes.”

A shuddering breath left her as Agnes' hand patted her leg once more before she shuffled out of the room. Belle knew she would be alone one day, left to try to find a path that would at least, perhaps, lead her from beyond these walls—but she would be grateful for the fact that at least it wouldn't be today.

  
  


Still, as much as she tried to cling to her father and Agnes and the other servants, to the somewhat normal life they had tried to build for her, Belle still felt herself slipping from them after that day. While it was not a path she _chose,_ purposefully, to take, she began to spend less time talking to the servants or studying with her father and more time shut away in her rooms with her charts, trying to find her way off of what felt like an increasingly dark narrow path. If she'd had the mind to think on it, Belle would have probably found it ironic that she was drawing away from everyone she knew and loved while trying to find a way out of isolation. But the more she Saw of one possible future—Saw herself growing old in this castle, her father and Agnes soon replaced by strangers who stayed only out of obligation instead of love—the less she could see of her present. While she felt the worry from her father when she muttered an excuse and waved him away when he invited her to his study, and Agnes' fear when she assured her nurse she would only be up one more hour several times throughout the night, Belle found it impossible to stop pursuing the winding possibilities in the hope that _one_ might change her life.

The only true peace she found, in the months following that vision of death that accompanied her blood, came from her visions of Rumplestiltskin. While so many of the paths she drew continued to end only in a grey, uncertain fog, the fact of _him_ helped some small part of Belle's mind stay grounded. She might not have known how or when they would meet, but she was absolutely certain that somehow they _would_ and that he would be something no one else in her life had ever been. And while she couldn't explain the joy she felt whenever she woke from a vision of him, the feeling still made every day spent alone with nothing to show for her trouble but a headache seem well spent.

Even his presence in her mind, though, couldn't quite balance the terror of the _other_ visions. The ones of blood and fire that seemed to be coming with more frequency with each day, that always left her shaking and sick no matter how often she saw them. Whatever battle—for Belle was quite sure that's what it was now—she Saw was sure to come, and it seemed it would be sooner rather than later. The only trouble was she still couldn't See _who_ the men she continually saw broken to pieces would be fighting. As terrifying as it was, she _did_ try, but each time she was only rewarded with louder screams and curses with no clearer vision of the enemy.

 

That all changed one night just two months shy of her fifteenth birthday, with absolutely no effort on Belle's part. She had fallen into a rare dreamless sleep, slumped over one of her increasingly-messy charts with the quill still held between her fingers. While she would have much preferred one of the dreams of Rumplestiltskin (she especially enjoyed the ones where she got to watch him spin, the repetitive motion strangely calming), the still darkness was a welcome reprieve from the chaos her mind had been of late. Which may have been why she was completely unable to hold back or even smother the screams that felt as if they were ripped from her throat when the vision changed to thundering creatures taller than two men together, roaring and smashing through a field, picking up men and crushing them as if they were a child's poorly made toy.

Had she been that child who saw her mother's mouth dripping blood, Belle was sure she would have run out into the hall and felt her way to her father's room to tell him what she'd Seen. But instead, the nearly-grown woman covered her mouth with one hand to try to keep the sounds she couldn't stop making from drawing Agnes' attention, while the other clutched her quill even tighter than before to write one word in large, trembling print.

_Ogres._

 

In the morning when Agnes came to help her get ready for the day, Belle tried—in between Agnes' clucking over the knots in her hair and the jerking of laces—to tell her old nurse what she'd seen the night before. At first her tongue was tied from years of habitually keeping the death and destruction shut away in her mind. She _couldn't_ burden her loved ones with that horror. But this time, she tried to tell herself, it wouldn't just be one man falling off his horse or one child drowned while his mother had her back turned, but what had to be _hundreds_ , not to mention the hundreds more who would lose their homes and loved ones in the monsters' rampage.  
  
It was the echo of all that grief in her mind that made Belle finally clear her throat as Agnes finished pinning her hair. “Agnes? Could...could you tell Father that I'd like to meet with him this afternoon?”  
  
Agnes' hand froze for a moment, and Belle swore she felt the woman release a held breath against her. “Of course, My Lady. Is there anything you'd have him bring?”  
  
Belle winced, and not because of the slight pricking of one of the hairpins. For all these months, she'd been neglecting not only her studies but her family—and now Agnes thought she was simply rectifying that and she didn't dare say otherwise. Not until she'd spoken with her father, decided just what they were going to do to keep their people safe.

“No, Agnes,” she said, forcing her lips to turn up as she glanced over her shoulder, hoping her face didn't show the fear and uncertainty twisting in her gut. “Just...tell him I've missed his company, and would like to talk with him as we used to.”  
  
She drew in her own breath when Agnes' hands lifted away from her hair to squeeze about her shoulders. “He'll be thrilled. We've all been worried about you, shutting yourself up like this all the time. I'm glad you're feeling better, My Lady.”  
  
Belle nodded jerkily, not trusting herself to speak as Agnes finished her ministrations and swept out of the room to her father's chambers. Perhaps she _would_ feel better after they spoke; her father was a smart man, and she'd studied enough history and strategy that between the two of them surely they'd be able to keep her vision from coming to pass.


	5. Chapter 5

Belle expected many things when she laid out her page of scratchy observations for her father. Shock, fear, perhaps even momentary disbelief. After all, she knew from her studies that the Ogres had never come closeto the Marchlands before, the dim-sighted creatures far preferring the open spaces in the Frontlands to her home's rocky shores. But the visions had become too clear, too frequent, for them to be just another possibility.

What she did not expect, however, was her father's outright _refusal_ to believe.

“It's just not possible, my girl,” he said, voice firm and warm like when he would tell her a creature in one of her stories was simply that when she was a child. “Ogres may be savages, but they're incapable of waging a _war,_ especially here.”

His near-condescending tone made Belle clench her fists for a long moment, trying to steady her mind and voice before she argued. “But Father, I've _Seen--”_

“And have you never Seen something that didn't come to pass?” he interrupted, and as he spoke Belle could hear him rolling up her parchment, almost as if he were trying to hide what was written on it. She took bit her lip hard for one moment, then lifted her head up towards where she'd heard his voice, hoping her gaze was level with his.

“You know that I have, Father. But this one wasn't like those. I've never seen _anything_ so often.” Which she supposed wasn't quite true, but now was most certainly not the time to reveal her lifelong visions of Rumplestiltskin.

“Belle,” she almost jumped at the touch of his hand beneath her chin, not having expected it. She felt his thumb brush just under her mouth, and she could hear his patronizing smile. “Darling, you're asking me to put fear into not just the castle but everyone in the village, all based on something that is nothing more than an insane fantasy.”

_Insane._ Belle had heard many words associated with her visions from her father and the staff over the years— _terrible, unfortunate,_ and, from Agnes, _just not worth it._ But no one had ever, not even on the nights she was found screaming or sobbing, called them—called _her—_ insane.

His words, his absolute certainty that she and her visions were wrong, made Belle's heart beat too heavily, so she could hear its rushing in her ears and feel it in her throat. She had always known he feared her powers, understood that she'd been isolated all these years to keep the people from believing she was some kind of demon. But she'd always trusted that he _believed_. How could he not, after her vision of her mother had come true?

But maybe he thought that a fluke. Perhaps, despite the Blue Fairy's assurances, he thought she was simply...mad.

That realization hit like a blow to her gut and Belle couldn't help dropping her head as she tried, furiously, to convince herself otherwise. Her father _loved_ her, and what was more, he'd spent all those years honing her mind, teaching her about politics even if he never expected her to be able to practice, reading her poetry and novels well into the night. He told her often that she was _brilliant._

But then again, hadn't he always turned her attention towards an absolutely _fascinating_ anecdote in one of his books every time she'd started to tell him any bit of one of her visions? Even the simplest things, such as trying to warn him of a nasty rain, had more often than not been met with a 'hmmm', and 'now, listen to this, my girl'. Perhaps, she thought, he'd been hoping that all that knowledge would fill her mind so much it would drown out the visions. And maybe she just hadn't Seen it because she'd been so focused on the bloodbaths she sought to avoid and the spinner she longed to meet.

Taking several quick breaths, Belle jerked her head away from his grip, keeping her gaze on him despite the tears she could feel filling her eyes. “No,” she said as forcefully as she could with a sob building in her throat. “I'm asking you believe in me so we can _save_ them.”

She heard the beginnings of a reply on her father's tongue, likely some trite assurance that he did believe in her, 'but.' Belle, however, didn't care to hear another word he had to say; not if he apparently didn't believe in any of hers. With only the slightest trembling in her fingers, she reached out towards his hand, fumbling for a second until she felt the parchment, which she quickly tore from his grasp. She heard him stammering, and cut him off before he could think to

“I suppose I'm old enough to do it on my own, though. After all, I'd be betrothed by now if I wasn't _insane._ ”

He drew in a breath, and for just a moment Belle thought she felt his fingers touch her hair. “My dear-”

Belle shook her head, pulling away from him. She wanted to say a dozen different things, about how she'd been truly blind to not see what he really thought of her, how foolish she'd been to believe in his wisdom simply because he'd read nearly as much as she had. Instead, she turned so he wouldn't see the tears she could feel burning in her eyes and forced two short, tense words through her trembling lips.

“Leave. Please.”

She heard her father stammering again, but he must have realized how weak any of his words would be, because only a moment later Belle heard the squeaking of a chair being pushed away and his heavy footsteps, quickly followed by the creaking of her door opening then slamming shut.

 

 

Once the door closed, Belle stood against it for a long moment, finally letting the tears stream down her face and the sobs leave her throat unhindered. She knew her father would return, probably hours from now, pleading that he was sorry, that his words had been careless, that he still loved her even if he didn't believe her.

Belle wished that could be enough. But she'd known for years that she needed more than the love of her household, that no matter how much she tried to accept it, a life kept inside these walls would never be entirely fulfilling. She'd thought that at least being able to help her people, even if not as their ruler, would give her life some meaning. But her father couldn't even allow her that small sliver of the life she would have had without the fairy's gift, because he believed it had broken her mind just as much as he'd told her the people always would.

She'd thought she couldn't be more shaken than she'd already been from the visions of the ogres, but apparently she was wrong about that too.

That was truly the most frustrating thing, not that her father hadn't believed her—that _hurt—_ but that Belle had believed he would. She hadn't glimpsed too far ahead, so she hadn't Seen the details, but she _had_ Seen the possibility that he would, that their people could be saved. Of course she'd been wrong before, but none of those things had mattered so very much. She had put so much faith in the Blue Fairy's assurance that she _could_ change things, that being unable to prevent the one thing that mattered more than any of the catastrophic falls or terrible coughs she'd warned the maids of combined felt like an actual blow. If she couldn't save them from _this_ , what did any of the little troubles she'd prevented matter? What would her life be, if she'd _have_ a life, if the ogres weren't stopped?

Although she knew Agnes would inevitably come to check on her as soon as the old nurse got word of what had happened, Belle couldn't help sliding down onto the floor, wrapping her arms about her legs and leaning her head on her kneecaps. She'd always believed that the price she had paid for her power was worth it if she could save people; but now, for the first time in all the years since her mother's death, Belle felt completely hopeless. She loathed the feeling, wishing she could stop the flood of tears that seemed absolutely childish in light of the situation. She squeezed her eyes shut against them, trying to tell herself that no sniffling would change her father's opinion or the terrifying future she'd been unable to prevent. And indeed, within a few moments she could no longer hear her own pathetic hiccups and sniffles. Nor could she hear any of the tiny noises of the castle that had always been loud to her ears. She heard a voice, but it was not that of any of the half dozen familiar maids', but a strange man's.

“ _A prisoner who could help us turn the tide against the ogres. Careful. It’s a tricky beast.”_

As was often the case the first time she Saw something, Belle could make out little more than shapes moving in a fog. She thought there were two men, the one who was talking and the one he was apparently answering. She cared little for the second man for the moment, wondering just _who_ this prisoner the first had mentioned might be. Anyone who could help stop the ogres was someone she wanted to See, so perhaps she could give her father their name, seek them out

Something felt...not quite off, but strangely familiar about this vision though. The tiny sensations she could pick up, like the breeze that tickled her arm--Belle swore she'd felt them before, although she couldn't immediately remember when or just what she had Seen that time. But before she could ponder it too hard, Belle felt a sharp blast of air against her face and then a man was standing in front of her, staring at her in bewilderment.

No. Not just _any_ man. Rumplestiltskin. Not with the glittering skin he often wore in her visions, but even with a man's skin she knew him almost better than she knew the people of her household. If the hope of finding someone who could stop the ogres hadn't dried Belle's tears, she knew he would have. She could feel her heart racing with something far different from fear or anger as he moved closer.

“ _You're a child.”_

Belle felt her heart lodge in her throat as she recognized those words, remembered the vision she'd had just after she'd been shut away in these rooms. But this time, the pain that was now a dull ache instead of the sharp fiery needle it had been years ago didn't force her to open her eyes. Which was why she finally heard the answer he received.

_"Please. I haven’t had a sip in days.”_

If she'd been able to stop herself, Belle would have kept her eyes shut to hear more. But those words sent her scrambling to her feet, rushing to where she kept her quill and parchment—well, not the words, but the voice that had said them.

Her voice.

The moment the quill touched the scroll, Belle felt the words _pouring_ from her mind with hardly a thought. What she put down would have made sense to no one in the castle—words like 'cows', 'wagon', 'hammer', joined not by each other but by lines that looped not just between the letters but each other, in patterns that only Belle herself understood, the motions burning them into her mind—but she still knew they were important. She still didn't have a reason for that, her insatiable record keeping, but at least she had a reason for something else.

A reason to leave.

There was, of course, the small matter of _how._ And she tried to search the looping paths for the one that might lead her from the castle, fingers digging into the quill and eyes squeezing shut so tightly her temples throbbed. She thought, for a moment, she saw a flash of _something—_ men in uniform standing in tall room, one looking as if he'd stared straight into the face of Death. But then the pain grew too intense to bear even in her desperation, and Belle found herself clumsily putting her charts away and stumbling to her bed.

She hoped to dream of her escape, but as often happened when she tried to force her gift, Belle found herself faced only with a darkness that dragged her into a heavy sleep. Occasionally a snatch of a word or flash of light from deep in the shadows would rouse her slightly, hand tangling in the sheets as if to grip her quill again, but whenever she tried to shove her body out of the blackness it seemed to swallow her again. After what might have really only been minutes, it began to almost feel comforting, letting all the fractured sounds—the whirring of a spinning wheel, a crackling fire, a child's laugh, someone humming, the crunch of dry grass—wash over her mind like a lullaby.

Sometimes, something else would break though the calm waves; a man's laughter that made her spine crawl, the smell of whiskey and smoke burning her throat and making her eyes water, a hand wrapped around her wrist feeling like a chain. Every time those brief flashes tore away her dark cover, Belle heard herself gasping and sometimes heard something else as well—feet running across stone, a voice that sounded very much like her father's—but before she could summon up the courage to sit up, she'd again hear the spinning wheel or someone with a thick brogue telling a story she could only half understand, and she'd let herself be pulled back under.

 

 

She wasn't sure how much time had passed when the real world started to come back in drips and drabs. Her hair being tugged, just a little, as it was brushed away from her face. The smooth warmth of a spoon held to her lips. And, the one that made her actually shove away the last sticky cobwebs clinging to her mind, Agnes' familiar murmur from a short distance away.

It hurt to move, but still Belle shifted towards the sound her nurse's voice, swallowing her groan as a heavy wave rocked her skull. “Agnes?” she tried to say, but all that came out was a squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again.

“Agnes? Wh—what time is it?”

At first, her only answer was the sound of water being wrung out of a washcloth. But then she heard Agnes' footsteps, and felt that same cloth brushing the corner of her mouth.

“Just after breakfast, my lady,” her nurse said, softly. Then, a few moments later with clear reluctance, “You must have been quite tired, you've been drifting off for nearly a week.”

_A week_. Nearly seven days when she could have been planning completely lost, with nothing to show for it but a few hazy recollections of men standing around looking like petrified children. Panicking at the thought of all that lost time, Belle sat up far more quickly than her aching mind preferred, and it reprimanded her by shooting more sharp arrows into her eyes. But she simply bit her tongue and moved the covers aside, standing up with the aide of the bedpost.

“Did my father say anything of our....discussion?” she asked, slowly, the words feeling heavy and thick on her tongue. Of course, _that_ she recalled quite clearly—her father's insulting refusal to listen—while she was struggling to recall the scraps of the future she'd Seen in her sleep. It was coming to her slowly, but it was difficult to focus on the paths walked by men covered in metal and blood when she kept hearing echoes of stories and laughter shared over a crackling fire.

Agnes' silence was even heavier now, and Belle could feel her restlessly adjusting the bedclothes about her. “Very little, my lady. He did mention that you had—words. But he's been more concerned about your health these past days.”

Belle felt a knot forming in her throat, wondering how her father had painted her 'words'. Had he made Agnes believe she'd been raving mad, using her fevered state as justification for not believing? She swallowed down all the anger and hurt that was bubbling up again, forcing her chin up high.

“I should see him, then, so he'll know I'm quite well now,” she said, trying very hard to smile. Although she still wanted her father to believe what she'd Seen, she still wanted to protect Agnes, as the old woman had protected her all these years. If she could still sway her father, she thought it might be possible to keep the most horrifying details from the ears of her old nurse or any of the other servants. But before she could follow through with her still half-hatched plan, she felt the comforting bony weight of Agnes' hand on her shoulder.

“I'm sure your father will be very glad to see you, my lady, but he's—dealing with state matters at the moment.”

Belle's brow furrowed, temples pinching again as she tried to find the truth hidden in her nurse's words. It had been easy when she was a child, when the lies had all been about sweets and toys, but now she found it much more difficult—and a mind already aching with the noise of children's laughter mixed with men's screams made it even more of a challenge.

“State matters? I wasn't aware he was going to be seeing anyone in the near future.” Her father always told her of the rare occasions when leaders and representatives from the neighboring states would be arriving—so she would know to remain hidden even more so than usual so as not to startle them with her milky eyes. “Who are we hosting?”

Agnes' silence was far heavier now, and Belle would have known even without her Sight that something awful was being hidden from her. Carefully, she gripped her nurse's free hand, pleading first silently and then, when that didn't work, with a voice that quivered far more than she would have liked—words full of the fear of what she was beginning to suspect.

“Agnes. Please. I'm not asking as your Lady. Please tell me what's happening.”

She heard and felt Agnes' shaky breath, hated that she could tell her dear nurse was close to tears herself as one word—that word Belle had stumbled out of bed to write not even a fortnight before—fell past her dry lips.

Belle wanted nothing more than to be able to comfort the woman who had spent so many years comforting her; shield her from these terrors as Agnes had tried so hard to shield her young mind. But she couldn't waste anymore time. For all she knew, her father's war room may have already been emptied, the men turned away as her father tried to keep denying the truth. So, drawing up all the scraps of courage she could find, Belle simply squeezed both her nurse's hands, and asked for a dress and cloak.

Of course, Agnes tried to sway her otherwise, even while she was taking the dress from her wardrobe and working the worst of the tangles from her hair. Reminding her that her father would simply send her back to bed, that those stubborn men would never hear the words of a child with so many knots in her curls. Still, as she was tightening the strings about her cloak, Belle felt Agnes' hands linger on her shoulders and heard a smile in the old woman's voice.

“There now, you'd almost have old Agnes fooled into believing you're a proper lady, I'm sure you won't have any trouble swaying those men.”

Despite the fear that caused her heart to hammer in her throat, Belle felt herself beaming, and this time she did reach out to hug her nurse, even though she was quite afraid that she might not find the strength to let go again.

“Thank you Agnes. For everything,” she whispered. “You'll tell Papa I'm sorry, won't you?”

She felt the old woman's nod. “Don't you worry, my child. I'll make sure he understands you're only doing what your dear mother would've, gods rest her soul.”

Being compared to her mother, and not just for her beauty, made the knots twisting in Belle's stomach and throat loosen just a little, and she nodded. “Thank you. I think I know the way, with the walls.” She knew Agnes would have wanted to lead her inside, but she had to do this alone. She had to be brave.

Feeling Agnes nod again, Belle slowly let go, turning towards her door. Before she reached it, though, she remembered one last thing—the faintest flicker of an image that had haunted her for years now, only just understood. “Oh, and Agnes? Could you—lock up my parchments?”

She could nearly see the confusion in her nurse's face, but the answer was swift. “Of course, my Lady.”

Belle smiled, although it was more of a shield against what she was about to face than any show of true joy, then turned her hood up and started feeling her way towards her fate.

  
  
  


It took longer than Belle would have thought to find her way—she hadn't accounted for the servants who would be trying to 'help' her back to her rooms. It was so easy to forget they'd be under orders to keep her secreted away, when it had rarely been an issue before. When she'd first lost her sight, she'd stumbled from her room a few times when one of the maids had forgotten to close the door tight, and quite honestly she'd been afraid. But she'd found her way back soon enough, learning to tell the hallway between her room and her father's study from the one that lead to the sun room by feel. And they'd been so rarely set upon by visitors that the servants hadn't often cared too much, really only worrying about her stumbling into them and causing a dreadful accident involving hot tea.

Now, though, they all seemed quite 'concerned' about her sudden appearance—all of them clucking something about how she'd been so terribly ill, she really shouldn't be out of bed, much less wandering about. And it was true that Belle did feel a bit dizzy at moments, even more so than she did after some of her visions. But she still, somehow, found the strength to politely explain that she had to see her father, and yes it did need to be this moment, while withdrawing her arm to continue on her way.

She finally found the war room, more by sound than feel—the sounds of arguing men. Belle recognized a few of the voices—Gaston's father, and likely Gaston himself, though she hadn't seen the man since he'd been a _boy—_ though many others were completely strange. The words made even less sense than most in her visions, all of them tumbling over each other trying to be heard, effectively making themselves unintelligible in the process. The distinct lack of her father's as she stood behind the door made Belle's heart tighten once more. She wanted to hear him say something—anything--to show he was willing to fight for their people. When he did speak, finally, Belle could only make out the word _impossible._

His denial would kill all of them if someone didn't do something. If she didn't do something.

Drawing one last great breath, Belle tightened the hood of her cloak and shoved the door open. She'd expected all the men to fall silent, but they continued to argue—Gaston was shouting something about a 'knight's duty', though whether it was directed to his father or hers, Belle wasn't sure. What she did know was that her temples were beginning to throb again, and she was starting to remember flickers of the less-sweet things she'd dreamed in her fever—she saw the face of the man who'd looked terrified in this very room, and knew just what had made him turn so pale.

Her own tongue dried suddenly, so that she had to practically peel it from the roof of her mouth to utter the seven words that would make them all fall still.

“Is the duke of the Frontlands here?”

For a moment, all Belle heard was the rushing of her own blood in her ears. Then a man's voice—the duke's, she thought—answering sharp and cold.

“If you're looking for an audience for your grievances, I would suggest you find a better—”

The last word died on the man's tongue, as Belle dropped her hood and lifted her head. She'd never seen the look of revulsion and fear before, but she knew the feel of it well enough—remembered from the days when all the servants in the castle had prayed for her recovery, while ducking and muttering when they had to serve her, staying as far as they could to do their work, as if fearful they'd catch whatever had taken hold of her—and she certainly felt it now. But she refused to let it under her skin now, as she stepped towards him, beaming with the joy that was suddenly filling her chest; the joy in knowing that she _could_

“Because if he is, I would like to speak to him about his little...infestation.”

She heard her father stammering then, the familiar sound of him hurrying towards her. Before he reached her, though, one of the other strange men barked out a laugh

“And we're supposed to believe a _girl_ can save us from _ogres?_ ”

The other men started snickering as well, and any other time Belle might have simply bit her lip and walked away. But now, she turned towards the voice—seeing his face in her mind, knowing exactly what would make him and all the others believe, even if it twisted her stomach.

“Believe what you will, Peter Sanderson. But I would hope you would do anything it took to make sure William didn't become an ogre's dinner, even if that meant listening to a girl.”

The jeering continued, of course, but short one voice. And then, with a hissed 'shut up', the others began to die as well. And she heard Peter's voice—trembling, fearful in a way Belle had never heard from a grown man—raise above the rest.

“Sire—perhaps---perhaps we should hear what the girl says.”.

  


An hour later—above her father's protests, which broke Belle's heart even when they grew weaker by the moment—Belle found herself boarding a wagon with nothing more than her cloak and dreams of a man with a spinning wheel. Even leaving her home among strangers who laughed and cursed her in turns, though, she couldn't help feeling rich knowing that she would finally be doing _something_ with her life. It was, she told herself as tears threatened to fall, worth any price.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, it's been a long time. People who interact with me know some details, but my life imploded. Hopefully that will stop happening so much and I can update a bit more regular-like.

The first month or so she spent at the edges of battlefields was, somehow, both the best and worst Belle thought she'd had in her entire life. The ache of missing her family and friends was constant, as if someone had ripped half her heart into tiny pieces and scattered them into the wind, forever out of reach. She worried about them every moment her mind wasn't occupied with helping the men trying to protect their homes. She worried that her father might have shut himself away from court life even more than he had after her mother's death and her blindness, that he might entirely forgo the business of caring for their people in her absence. Despite their terrible parting, Belle still knew he cared for her fiercely, and wished not for the first time that he had married despite her condition so that he would at least have some family at his side now.  
  
However, the moments she was able to brood on her father and Agnes and all the rest of them were actually rather few and far between. There were battles to predict and prepare for, after all. There were lives for her to save. And she did save them. While the visions were as painful as always—she'd terrified one poor man who had been standing watch just outside the entrance to her tent when she'd begun to twist in her sheets and woke up with a scream only to shove past him to his commander —for once they truly served a purpose. The first night she heard men coming back laughing and cheering, although she could still See the might-have-been of their corpses crushed and broken beyond recognition, Belle had smiled for hours straight. She murmured quiet thanks to each who said something to the effect that he 'never would have thought a girl' would have known what sort of trap to build and where to place them to snap the clumsy creatures' ankles so they could no longer defend themselves. Even when she had to decline joining in their celebrations, only half feigning a delicate constitution that couldn't stomach the idea of eating ogre, Belle went to bed that night feeling something she never truly had before—that she was useful.

For long weeks, although she was always exhausted, often chilled due to the clime that was so different from her generally-temperate home, and very much alone as the villagers in the nearby towns only spoke in her presence to thank her and then rushed away in what she knew too well to be fear, Belle felt a quiet type of joy she'd never known in her home.

But then, as they so often did whenever Belle felt like the earth was finally steady beneath her feet, things changed.

  
She was never sure, in the weeks and months and even years that followed, whether she was angry or thankful she hadn't envisioned what would happen once she was far from home. Some days she knew she was both. She supposed it was some small measure of mercy that she hadn't been haunted by that particular future as she had been haunted by men's dying screams for so many years. But she couldn't help thinking, when she was left alone, that if she had Seen it maybe she would have fought right away.

Instead, she'd lain deathly still, trying to send her mind into any other place—even trying to reach for where the ogres might be, knowing right away that she would rather be smelling the creatures and the blood that would be spilled at their feet rather than the drunken breath of the man—men, she'd realize much later—atop her. She hadn't even cried out, not after the hand covered her mouth and the voice whispered in her ear that she'd wake the captain. She could never understand why that had worked. She should have wanted to wake everyone, to make them all see the truth of what was happening.

But she didn't. She'd laid there, even after she was alone again in her tent, both body and mind more still than she could ever recall being since she was young. She couldn't even will herself to press for the most familiar of visions, the usually-comforting queerness of that castle and Rumplestilskin's laughter. She'd just stayed there, willing her limbs not to move an inch and keeping her mind blank until morning.

It was only when dawn came and the captain walked in to talk strategy as they had for the last week that Belle found her voice again. Perhaps it was anger—that he hadn't kept his men from her, that he hadn't done anything to keep her safe. Or perhaps it was hearing someone else speak again, his voice piercing the fog she'd wrapped around her senses and waking up every aching, confused nerve in her body. Or maybe it was his words, his laughter and incredulous questioning why she wasn't dressed already. Whatever it was, Belle found herself sitting up—trying not to wonder at the fact her sheets stuck to her legs in more than a tangle—and turning her gaze towards him, feeling no shame at the fact she knew her clouded gaze still unsettled him.

“The men,” she'd said, quietly—she wanted to scream, but she couldn't quite find the strength for that. “They came in here last night. They...” the word _ravished_ came into her mind, remembered from the scandalous poetry some of the maids had whispered to her, but she couldn't say that. That word, what had happened in the night, didn't compare in the least to those longing ballads. “Hurt me,” she finally said, although those words also seemed far too small for what had transpired.

There was a heavy silence for a moment, and Belle briefly thought that the captain was going to walk out to deal with the soldiers. Instead, he did something that would make bile rise in her throat for years to come.

He laughed.

He laughed and said something about the men's 'needs', then started rustling with a map and saying something about traps.

While Belle was never sure what had kept her still in the night or what had woken her in the morning, she knew without question that his laughter was what made her stand—only wincing at the ache that caused far later—and storm to the small work table, trying to strike an imposing pose with her tangled hair and shift that needed a wash even more than it had the day before.

“ _'Needs_ '?” she'd heard herself speaking more than she felt it, as if the words were coming from somewhere else—maybe the place that was aching in her chest, confused and angry, feeling like she'd lost something without quite understanding what it was. “What they _need,_ Captain, is my help to keep from finding their—their sorry lives ending in an ogre's mouth. And if you--” she'd nearly stopped then, surprised at herself for even thinking this. She'd come to keep people alive, not hasten them to their graves.

In that moment of hesitation, she had a single disjointed vision—metal bars under her fingertips, wood splintering into her bare feet, a cold breeze snapping at her dry lips—and she suddenly understood. Another path she'd never seen all the way through suddenly cleared.

She'd swallowed down the knot in her throat, gathering every scrap of hope she still had that there wasn't a fork in this road she'd never seen and that it was truly the right one to follow, before finally picking up the only weapon she'd ever had.

“If you do not do _something_ to punish them for what was done to me last night, they—all of you—will find yourself at the mercy of those creatures because you will have no more help from me.”

For one more long moment, Belle thought that perhaps that long-repeating vision of that cage might perhaps just being one particularly strong might-be. Because the captain was silent for quite a long time, the only sound his footsteps pacing around her. She tried not to hold her breath, tried to keep her chin up and gaze steady and what she hoped was haunting—refusing, now, to let him see even a hint of the fear she'd felt the night before or how dearly she still wanted to save them all despite what had happened.

Her hopes were dashed rather swiftly, though, when she heard him call out for two of the men—she never knew if they had been among those who had visited her in the dark that night—and then felt strong hands wrapped around her wrists. She could have wept, begged him to see reason, pleaded for the lives of others if not herself.

But the cold ache in her heart wouldn't let her do anything except turn towards where she felt he was standing, just as the men were guiding her out of the tent, and say six simple words she hadn't wanted to come true.

“You won't live to regret this.”  
  


Despite the anger and sadness that had settled like a weight in her chest, Belle couldn't bring herself to completely follow through on her threat. When visions of the ogres came, she would give the men set to guard her the disjointed pieces of the future before she took the time to fit them together. Sometimes, that was enough—one of them would figure out how 'rope' and 'water' could be combined to result in drowning the clumsy creatures when they became entangled.

Often, it wasn't. There were more deaths; even though the covering over her cage kept the air from brushing her cheek Belle could still smell the blood and other things she chose not to think about. And of course she heard the screams, shriller than they had ever been when it had all been in her head. She tried not to feel guilty, tried to assure herself that even if the captain and his men hadn't chosen such an unchivalrous path, she still might not have Seen the way to save every man who found his end on those fields. And it wasn't as if she was, truly, holding back all that much from them. The truth of the matter was, even if she'd been able to find it in her heart to forgive any of them for what had happened, she couldn't have helped much more. Because, while the world outside was becoming evermore heavy with death and sadness, in her mind there was a surprising amount of light.

It hadn't changed straight away. The first few days after her attack, she'd shared her little cage with only memories of the far-too-recent past instead of the future. At any other time in her life that might have been welcome, but considering the men who had hissed crude nonsense in her ears were still laughing just feet away, Belle would have actually preferred visions of bloody battlefields rather than actually _remembering._ She tried to keep from sleeping for several days, attempting to busy her mind with chasing the trails of disant might-bes and tracing them out on the floor of her cage, but no matter how many times she tried to follow the strange yellow carriage or a pair of glass shoes, she kept coming back to the reality of iron bars and callous men who made her forget why she'd ever wanted to be a selfless hero.

She wasn't sure how long it was before the nightmares of her waking life began to finally be overtaken by a warm hearth and a child's voice, but she no longer cared. All that mattered was that, even if it was sometimes only for a few moments before she was startled from her trance with someone quite literally spitting curses at her, she could feel safe again. She couldn't even find it in herself to try to push past the small room she kept finding herself in to find out the path that would lead to the man she kept hearing speak so softly being the same as the one who sometimes giggled manically in a castle; there would be time enough to find that path when she was no longer in a cage. For the time, she simply let herself selfishly enjoy the brief escapes.

It wasn't the cruelty of the men, or even the pain of any of the other truly innocent people she hadn't been able to save, that finally made Belle completely shrug away the fog she'd let envelop her mind. It was hearing, very distantly, the roll being taken of yet another wagon load of men she wouldn't be able to promise a return trip. She'd been hearing the names rattled off for the entire time she'd been locked away; sometimes, she swore she heard the same name being called forward and then counted among the dead in the same day, but she would also admit that her grasp of time had become quite tenuous. It wasn't that she didn't care about the recruits—she told herself she truly did, that whatever crimes their supposed superiors had committed against her these strangers deserved whatever little bit of help she could give—but her mind just wouldn't hang on to them, passing them over for another trip through some other place and time.

Except for one. A name she'd never heard spoken aloud before, save by herself late at night, one she apparently still whispered aloud because once when she thought she'd been chanting it in her mind one of the men had spat at her to 'cut out that witchcraft before I cut out your tongue'. She'd wrinkled her nose at him, wishing she still had the words or mind to explain the difference between witches and what she was.

Now, though, Belle couldn't help thinking, just for a moment, that perhaps she had cast some sort of spell to draw forward the man she'd known for as long as she could remember, but never before met. It might explain why she felt the urge to scream at the man calling roll—he didn't know the _power_ that was already in the name he bellowed so unceremoniously.

“RUMPLESTILTSKIN.”


End file.
